1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to alcoholic beverages, and particularly to a method of making an alcohol concentrate, especially a concentrate of beer, wine, alcohol-base ciders, and the like. The present invention also relates to a method for efficient extraction of hops.
2. Description of the Related Art
Beer has long been a favorite recreational beverage among all classes of people. Beer has traditionally been considered a particularly satisfying beverage after spending long hours laboring or exerting one's self outdoors. There's nothing quite like a cold beer after a long, hard day working outdoors. Although water and energy drinks certainly fulfill one's needs for hydration and nutrition, they don't have the tang of hops or the bite provided by the alcohol in beer. There are some, however, who do not care for beer, but feel the same way towards a glass of wine or alcohol-based cider.
Such beverages, however, have high water content by volume due to the relatively low concentration of alcohol. For the dedicated outdoor sportsman, the high water content of such beverages is a problem because it increases the weight. When going hiking, camping, hunting, etc., the weight one has to carry must be minimized. It is often impractical to carry conventional bottles or cans of beer, wine, or cider on such overnight trips. Moreover, when shipping large volumes of beer, it is desirable to minimize freight charges. Although beer concentrates are known in home brewing, such concentrates are powdered and unfermented, and require considerable time and inconvenience to turn into a potable beverage.
Some breweries have been known to make a beer concentrate to decrease freight charges when shipping beer across the country. At its destination, the concentrate is reconstituted by diluting the concentrate with water to obtain the desired alcohol concentration and adding carbonation, as desired. The beer is then packaged for sale. In such cases, the beer concentrate is prepared by brewing beer with additional ingredients to produce a stronger beer that may be diluted after shipping. However, the beer concentrate itself is not available for sale directly to consumers.
In addition to the benefits of the concentrated beer itself, the process herein described for the production of a beer concentrate has several cost and energy saving benefits over the traditional process of beer production. In conventional beer brewing, a portion of the grain is malted to convert starches in the grain to sugars. The malt and unmalted grains are ground and mixed with hot water in a mash tun to extract the sugars from the grain. The water with the extracted sugars is filtered through a screen to remove most of the spent grain husks, and sprayed or sparged with additional water to remove any additional sugar from the remaining grain, husks, leaving a sweet liquid called the wort. The wort is boiled in a kettle, and hops and other flavor additives are added to the kettle. Boiling removes the bitterness from the hops and sterilizes the wort by killing wild yeast. The wort is cooled and transferred to a fermenter, leaving the spent grain and hops behind.
The wort is brought to a proper temperature (50°-70° F.) to promote fermentation, the wort is aerated or oxygenated, and yeast is pitched or added to the wort either before or after aeration. Fermentation may take place entirely in a single vessel, or in two vessels with repitching of yeast. Primary fermentation lasts about 3-5 days for ales, and longer for lagers. The yeast flocculates and falls to the bottom of the fermenter. At this point, most of the simple sugars and maltose will have been consumed. The fermentation may enter a secondary fermentation, in which the yeast breaks down more complex sugars. Secondary fermentation may last 1-3 days for ales, but up to one month for lagers. The finished beer is clarified and lagered.
Brewers typically use the boil time in the wort preparation process to achieve and regulate several desirable outcomes. Among the objectives of the wort boil are to pasteurize the wort, remove, or at least partially remove DMS compounds, and isomerize the bittering resins of the hops. Adequate pasteurization can be achieved in relatively short periods of time at boiling temperatures. However, DMS removal (or at least partial removal by evaporation) and hops isomerization and extraction require longer periods of time at the sustained temperatures of the rolling wort boil. Therefore, the extraction of the isomerized hops resin adds to the longer boiling times of most wort preparation. Longer boiling times means more energy invested by the brewer.
The culinary industry has long sought a beer concentrate for the addition of beer flavor to food. Beer itself contains too much water to be added to many recipes. Therefore, a beer concentrate is desired to impart full and authentic beer flavor to food without the undesired effects of adding unwanted water.
It would, therefore, be desirable to provide a beer, wine, or cider concentrate for purchase by consumers that can be reconstituted by simply adding water, and possibly carbonation. Thus, a method of making an alcohol concentrate solving the aforementioned problems is desired.